Wednesday 22 December 2010 19.23 EST
First published on Wednesday 22 December 2010 19.23 EST

The best work done by Booktrust does not sound like much: it gives new books to young children. But it amounts to a lot: toddlers gain their first exposure to the published word, primary-school pupils get shiny new novels to cart around – and families who otherwise would have little in the way of shared entertainment gain a new means of communication. Through its gift programmes for children – Bookstart, Booktime and Booked Up – the charity distributed around 6m books last year to toddlers and teenagers. Since the initiative began in 1992 it has also been copied in 24 other countries – from Australia to Qatar. A success story, then; except that the government has just announced it will axe all of its £13m funding for the English schemes from next April. It is hard to know which aspect of this decision is more perplexing: the fact that the announcement was made without warning last Friday, leaving Booktrust just over three months to cobble together alternative funding; or that government ministers have previously made such warm noises about the schemes' encouragement of reading (Nick Clegg was snapped chatting away at the Booktrust stall at the last Lib Dem party conference). Or, perhaps, that a programme where a small amount of public money helps bring in tens of millions more in private-sector value now faces a very uncertain future. Public and private sectors combining to provide a public good: wasn't that meant to be what the "big society" was all about?

• This article was amended at 18:50 on 23 December 2010. The original referred to "tens of millions more in private-sector cash" being brought in. The sponsorship is in fact in kind, not in hard cash. This has now been corrected